Passover Cleaning

   Ah, no! That time of the year has come again and no, I am not talking about Easter. I am talking about Passover. The holiday where we Jews work like slaves to rid our houses, stores and, offices of products made from leaven grains. Passover cleaning for Orthodox Jews is not a joke in any manner. We cannot even use our ovens unless they are self cleaning, have the broil cycle turned on for over an hour, or we use a blow torch on it. We have to either blowtorch our utensils and cookware, or replace them with Passover cookware and utensils. We have to replace the dishes because they are not made of metal and cannot be koshered.We have to remove all leavened products from our house or ownership by selling them. Passover can be quite a burden without all the extra cleaning that many people incorporate into their Passover cleaning. What makes this holiday even worse is that the Passover food is twice the calories and not even as nutritious or tasty.

  What I always found ironic about Passover is that the Jewish people celebrate their exodus from Egypt yet, we work like slaves in order to celebrate Passover. The Jews were slaves in Egypt and were forced to work like slaves. That was until God sent Moses to be an intermediary between him and Pharoh. Moses with the help of God unleashed Ten Plagues on Egypt. At the seder we talk about how we were slaves and now we are free, but if you looked at what it takes for one to prepare for Passover would you say that we are free?

   The woman in the video, Rebbetzin Rivka Leah Zelwig, is a parody of how intensely one can overdo Passover cleaning. This woman dismantles her kitchen by using heavy power tools in order to make her kitchen free of leavened products. She even tells her daughter to remove the toilet. I find that funny because since when do people bring food into the bathroom? She even says to remove the sink, toilet, kitchen tiles and, every single feather from a down blanket. We even see her remove an electrical outlet from the wall and use power tools. One can make their sink kosher for Passover by pouring hot water over it so and we normally say a blessing after checking for leavened products that nullifies all the leavened products that were not found during the search, so that does not make sense. Also I found it funny when she told her daughter to remove to toilet, because we are not allowed to eat in the bathroom so why would the toilet have leavened products and, if so we could flush is or bleach, which is still over the top but not unusual to do, not remove the toilet.

Another example of how people overdo Passover cleaning is this article on Failed Messiah.This is something that many can relate to. I know someone who said that his stepmother's family was similar to the woman in the video. Instead of trying to clean every single electrical outlet we should be focusing on the basics to make this already strenuous holiday the simplest one can  possibly make it.Instead of treating it like spring cleaning we should focus on literally following the Jewish law. By simply doing that we are already doing backbreaking labor. I guess this goes to show that too many restrictions can lead to destroying children's toys, your property, your clothes, and many other things. This however does give everyone a good laugh about the lengths one goes to properly clean for Passover.